Scotland

 Flying is diabolical.  Yesterday I landed in Amsterdam after an overnight flight from a 104 degree day in Paramaribo and this morning I woke up at 7:30 local time here:

It was indeed a strange flight starting with me dressed like an arctic explorer leaving my dog (and my wife) on the usual 104 degree afternoon. 

Thank god the cab had air conditioning for the hour long drive to the international airport sensibly located in the distant suburbs where residents don’t get their conversations drowned by passing aircraft, one of my many pet peeves about commercial flying. 

I know Key West airport has been modernized and improved to handle the millions of passengers vacationing nowadays in what was once an eccentric destination, but Paramaribo is not following suit with the modernization theme so I got to  enjoy a small taste of my past in an airport designed for maximum inconvenience serving what is in reality a very small capital city. Security couldn’t find enough bins to keep the line moving and the people in charge of the electricity kept losing it, as though the electrical energy was a cat hiding under the furniture. Now you saw it, now you didn’t. 

I had two hours to sit so I sat and observed the Hard Rock Cafe never lost power. Either they had a generator or better cat wranglers. The public address system was only in Dutch, spoken at extremely high volume by someone with a peculiar falsetto voice. I heard my name called syllable by syllable at one point and I waited patiently for instructions in English. None came. Oh by the way if you need to fly with fresh vegetables they are for sale in an enticing array in the departure hall after you pass through security. 

A fellow bi-lingual passenger helped me out and I got my passport scanned and I continued to sit watching the lights go on and off. I was reading a novel of Scotland by Peter May about murder and salmon farming and shooting stranded whales and other uplifting subjects so my mood was as you might expect, when I was also faced with eight hours of sitting in a box far from Layne and Rusty and GANNET2. 

The airport loaded us eventually. The falsetto voice said something and lines formed, none too soon as the air conditioning was on ultra low to save Suriname some money and my re-creation of a misplaced Arctic expedition was feeling more and more oppressive as the afternoon wore on. I tore off my vest and long sleeved shirt but my knees felt mushy with sweat. 

I tagged along with the line and we walked old Key West style out to the jumbo jet. I was starting to hope real hard Amsterdam would be cold and wet and rainy (it was) to justify my gear. 

At the last minute a woman took the outside seat but she spent the flight after dinner sitting under a blanket which seemed a harmless eccentricity under the circumstances. 

The flight itself was the usual weirdness of trying to live a normal

middle class life at 37,000 feet eating a fish dinner watching a movie and trying not to think about how bizarre our privileged world is of being able to vanish like a ghost from Suriname to eat breakfast in The Netherlands surrounded by high tech functioning facilities that we take for granted in our world. The airport temperature at Schipol was perfect, some toilet paper on the floor freaked out a white man who made a scene about a filthy toilet stall, clearly not someone who has been driving South America for years, and the  desk seats were taken by serious looking business people hunched over lap tops fully expecting the WiFi to be perfect. And then there was me feeling more than usually out of place. Bye bye Suriname:

Hello to the civilization that I grew up with and took for granted. Do you prefer fizzy or flat water guaranteed sterile from a tap? 

I had bought a business class seat to Inverness, an $80 upgrade which gave me access to the business class lounge for four hours, a vast concourse of free food and drink…

…with numerous buffet tables and bars…

… and showers…

…and as I had changed some money effortlessly at the ATM, my sole task, I bought a $45 bed for two hours and made myself beautiful with some sleep. 

All of which was great fun and totally unimaginable during our travels but it was also a reminder that people on business travel have to live like this to earn their pay. I’d rather travel as I do on my terms thanks. 

Not showering and using a porta potty is a privilege when you do it voluntarily. At noon I got back at it. 

I saw lots of wind farms as we approached Inverness but my sister tells me electricity rates in the northwest highlands are the highest in the country as the cheap energy is sent south to the populated areas where the votes are I suppose.

The wilderness of Europe. It’s less than 3,000 feet but I felt I could have been flying over Peru. 

Inverness (“mouth of the ness” in Gaelic) is the city of the north but it has a delightful small town approach to aircraft with more tarmac walking.  

Verizon reminded me my madcap journey was complete with a second message in a day from their international service. 

“What is the purpose of your visit?” the immigration officer asked in that Celtic brogue native to the Highlands. “My sister’s getting married in Ullapool on Saturday,” I said. His eyes lit up. “Oh” he said. “You’ll be having a grand time then,” as he handed me back my US passport.

Well yes except of course…